Jambo vs LSG vs Johnson Reverse

After buying my Klose the first thing I learned on it is that the stories of offsets being "difficult" and having "a steep learning curve" is just an old wives tale. Mostly spread by people who fell victim to cheap box store offsets, and people who just parrot what the box store offset victims say.

If you have managed to grow to adulthood without stepping out in front of a bus, or ignoring the warning on plastic bags and suffocating yourself, Id say you have enough sense to operate a quality offset. Its just not that complicated.

My first stickbuner was a 30x84 Shirley fab. I did however come from cooking on weber kettles and a uds. I picked up the cooker 2nd week of November, went on a 5 day cruise the next week, and 3 days after the cruise I seasoned the cooker and smoked 11 turkeys for the first smoke. so buying a quality smoker helps a lot with the learning curb.

After a few of the comments in this thread I would look at the price these are going for used if resale value is important to the op. I would think the Jambo would be the safest out of the 3 you listed.

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el luchador said:

lol. Im trying to help the op. if it goes against your religion sorry. lol.

Im cooking a brisket today btw, probably grill some chicken wings as well.

Enjoy your cooking today as well.

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If the OP wants a stick burner, why can’t he have one? And what’s it matter what 3 of the top 5 KCBS teams cook on?

When we purchased our offset, a 20" Horizon R.D. Special, our only experience was with BGEs. We could have saved a ton of money on something from the big-box-store route but everything I read pointed to a probable less-than-enjoyable learning curve, and possibly just developing a real aversion to cooking with a cheap offset.

Using the Horizon is quite enjoyable and turns out fantastic food. It operates just as one would hope, gets a split when it needs a split, and doesn't have huge temperature spikes, the 0.250 steel thickness retains heat well. The basic learning curve needed to produce good-tasting food was so short I think we almost missed it.

The ONLY thing I regret about purchasing this smoker is that I listened to the owner of the BBQ store, who is a great guy and was only offering his best advice, and ordered the 20" instead of going with the 24." The food tasted so good coming off this smoker, that my missus started inviting more people over and the cooks got to be large enough that the 24" would really come in handy: there are worse problems to have.

At no time have I ever regretted getting a "good one" from the start, and always realized that stickburners would require a certain amount of time and attention. For me, this has been a situation to look forward to.

Good luck with your choice!

The Shakar said:

Thanks for the response! Do you ever wish you could cook at different temperatures at the same time? That's really the only negative I've seen for reverse flow. I've also read that reverse flows use more wood but haven't seen anyone actually put this to the test and prove it...

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As for the more wood I can't say for sure, but I think they probably do. One of the reasons that RF cookers work so well is that you are utilizing an "uphill" strategy where you have the nose end (opposite the firebox) at a slight decline. This forces the hot air to go down first, rather than up, so you're wasting energy in doing that. But this also slows the flow down a bit and it's one of the reasons you'll get an almost perfectly even temperature across the entire cooking grate. So I can easily see the case being made for them using more wood, but it's not a substantial amount extra. Something else to note though is that with the RF baffle you're also heating the food from the bottom, so in the end it might actually even out in terms of wood consumption.

In the same sense that the decline works to even things out, if you have a slight or marginal incline you can end up with a 25-50° temperature difference. I have done this before and it works when I'm doing a KCBS comp where I need to cook chicken at ~300° and ribs at ~275*° at the same time. But I found I have better results keeping the main cooking grate the same temp and just using the upper racks for doing chicken. My upper racks are usually about 15-25° hotter than my lower racks so it does give me options.

One thing I will say for RF is it's nice to be able to load it up and not have to worry about rotating anything. Outside of chicken I smoke everything at 250-275° so I never really have a huge desire 2-zone cooking. My smoker has an independent grill attached to it as well so I've used that as a grill-smoker at the same time as I'm running the main smoker. I also have the vertical smoker on top of the firebox and I had it modified so I can cook in it independently of the main chamber. So with this setup I can effectively cook at 3 different temps at the same time.

If you have anymore questions about Johnson Smokers feel free to shoot me a PM. I love talking about it as I'm a big fan of his designs and it's good to see some interest on this forum in other cookers besides Shirley Fab.

Just my pov, but I would suggest reverse flow. On a std offset, you lose a lot of useful real estate off the firebox end of the smoking chamber because it gets too hot and dry there. Better to achieve temp diff by using second-level grates, as suggested above.

Also, I would reiterate you'll have a far easier time learning how to smoke on a quality offset; a cheap one is more likely to be far more difficult to use/achieve good results.

OklaDustDevil said:

Just my pov, but I would suggest reverse flow. On a std offset, you lose a lot of useful real estate off the firebox end of the smoking chamber because it gets too hot and dry there. Better to achieve temp diff by using second-level grates, as suggested above.

Also, I would reiterate you'll have a far easier time learning how to smoke on a quality offset; a cheap one is more likely to be far more difficult to use/achieve good results.

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I seem to be beating a very horse here... anyone ever heard of tuning plates?

Also Franklin himself is coming out with a line of traditional flow smokers this summer if you have any interest in waiting for that.

https://franklinbbqpits.com


They will look something like this:

Springram said:

I seem to be beating a very horse here... anyone ever heard of tuning plates?

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Tuning plates can be effective, but I don't believe they are comparable to an RF baffle system. Something else to note is that tuning plates rattle out of place when you move your cooker and that's a pain constantly having to reset them.

SmoothBoarBBQ said:

Tuning plates can be effective, but I don't believe they are comparable to an RF baffle system. Something else to note is that tuning plates rattle out of place when you move your cooker and that's a pain constantly having to reset them.

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You are right. They are not comparable. In my crappy "traditional" vertical offset from LSG with tuning plates, I can have temperatures the same size to side OR I can cook at 275* on one side for a brisket while cooking a chicken on the other side at 325*.

I have to reset my plates when I clean out the bottom of the cooking chamber. I am exhausted after the 30 seconds it takes me to put them back in position.

BOTH designs work well. Both will do great jobs cooking BBQ. Get off your high horse.

:cop::cop:

Sorry Springram, it kinda seems like experience is not required in this thread. The old, that's the way we've always done it will prevail.

OP, good luck with your purchase, and I really do hope you love it as much as you think you will. I'd hate for you or anyone to go through what I did. I only lost about $1200 when all was said and done, not to mention the stress, and looks from the wife when I bought the smoker I should have bought the first time.

I'll bow out of this thread now. Too many "I'm right, and you don't know what you are talking about" people...

Seems fire building is harder for some than others. I started with stick burning and it was pretty easy to get down. Things to remember...

Your chasing a temp zone, don't expect to keep a 10 degree variance.

Start with a good bed of coals before even trying to maintain a temp.

Correctly seasoned wood is your friend. Play with greener stuff once you have it down a bit.

I started on excellent quality stick burners and wouldn't steer you away unless you didn't have time to maintain the fire.

Good luck!

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THoey1963 said:

Sorry Springram, it kinda seems like experience is not required in this thread. The old, that's the way we've always done it will prevail.

OP, good luck with your purchase, and I really do hope you love it as much as you think you will. I'd hate for you or anyone to go through what I did. I only lost about $1200 when all was said and done, not to mention the stress, and looks from the wife when I bought the smoker I should have bought the first time.

I'll bow out of this thread now. Too many "I'm right, and you don't know what you are talking about" people...

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Glad I bought a quality offset instead of buying box store junk. It was by far the best decision. Holds heat, easy to keep in a range, easy to cook on, only toss a log on every 45 minutes or so. Best BBQ I ever made. Its just really not that difficult or complicated.

And I bought it because I was tire of doing brisket on my Kettle which does not retain heat, barely holds a temp range and requires me to go outside and make adjustments on it every 10 minutes for 15 hours straight. By the time it's done I don't even care about the brisket anymore. Or as El Luchador would call it..."easier". :wacko:

M Grills

Check out M1Grill very nice and in your price range www.bigpoppasmokers.com

Both of my cookers are reverse flow w/tuning plates. In my opinion the tuning plates offer far more adjust-ability and ease of cleaning over a fixed channel and as has been said only take a couple of minutes to setup if an earthquake or other disaster does move them out of position.

Larry

SmoothBoarBBQ said:

...tuning plates rattle out of place when you move your cooker and that's a pain constantly having to reset them.

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That hasn't been my experience when I move the cooker in and out of my garage. The plates on a quality cooker are pretty heavy and they fit in pretty well.